


i don’t need that on my conscience

by swingingparty



Series: the staten island ferry debacle drabbles [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, IronDad and SpiderSon, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Protective Tony Stark, Spider-Man: Homecoming Compliant, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, but tony centric because i say so, heavy on the hurt light on the comfort, it's basically the staten island ferry scene, it's okay though we love him, like very compliant, whether he likes it or not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swingingparty/pseuds/swingingparty
Summary: The Staten Island Ferry debacle but set from Tony's perspective. Cue the angst!





	i don’t need that on my conscience

Tony hates a lot of things.

Decaf. Sleeping - most of the time. Hot weather. Having to wear a suit in said hot weather. Most press conferences. Pepper being mad at him. Secretary of Defense Thaddeus Ross. Decaf again, because honestly, it deserves it.

But arguably one of the things he hates the _most_ is giving people instructions - direct, specific, _clear_ instructions - and them completely not listening. Or - even worse - them listening, retaining and thinking about what he’s said, and then _completely disregarding_ every word that came out of his mouth.

Contrary to what people think, he’s not an inherently bossy person. Sure, there are some things he feels he has jurisdiction over and subsequently becomes a little micromanage-y with. Take Iron Man, for example. Tony gets controlling with all things Iron Man, because why wouldn’t he? He’s, you know, the guy who actually _is_ Iron Man, so it makes sense that he’d be calling the shots. The suits, his tech and projects, yeah, okay, he’s worse than a helicopter parents with at times. But, really, after that, he lets people have free reign. Even his own company is more in Pepper’s hands than his. And it’s not like he minds - the opposite, rather; Stark Industries had been a never-ending headache for him - it’s just he minds when he does step in and _nobody listens._

Which seems to be the course of action happening now. Tony knew something was up, he should’ve kept the kid on for longer, interrogated him a little more. If Peter Parker is anything, it’s a god-awful liar, especially when it comes to Tony. Certainly has its perks, not that those came in any use because the kid _hung up on him_ before he could even venture the question of why he sounded like he was about to go into cardiac arrest.

 _Band practice._ What, does the Peter think he was born yesterday? It’s not like the lie will even hold - Tony has eyes everywhere. He has a tracker in the kid’s suit, for god’s sake. It literally took him under a minute to find out where the kid was.

And it certainly wasn’t at fucking _band practice_ . More like perched somewhere on top of nothing other than the _Staten Island Ferry_ . Which is weird - and concerning - on a lot of levels. One, the kid has school. Spanish, to be exact. Two, the kid hates ferries. Peter told him about it once when he forced them to play 20 questions and Tony, feeling that he might as well take advantage of the game that made him feel uncomfortably like a preteen and probe the kid a little, had asked what he was afraid of. Ferries had been somewhere on the list. And third, and possibly the most concerning, was that even from Tony’s preliminary reading of the suit’s information, he can tell the kid’s vitals are _through the roof_.

“Fri, give me a read on Parker’s stats.” God, he does _not_ have time for this. He’s supposed to go out with Pepper this afternoon. He’s been looking forward to it all week, time alone with he to just talk and _relax_ . And Peter Parker’s current predicament is disrupting his plans just a little. He groans internally as Friday runs the scan. Could the kid have chosen a _worse_ time to cut school and board a ferry and start having a virtual panic attack on the roof of it?

Part of him - a large part - knows his accumulating anger is a cover for the deep concern and worry he feels as soon as he knows something’s up.

He wants to throw that part into a tiny little box and call it a day. He has no business getting attached - to a fifteen-year-old kid no less; what is he, a father now? - or involving himself in Peter’s life. That’s the last thing the kid needs. Still, he can’t help but feel a spike of borderline dread as Friday gives the diagnostics back.

“Mr. Parker appears to be experiencing an elevated heart rate. His breathing is irregular and his body temperature is also rising. It seems he is in significant distress.”

“Great.” Tony presses his fingers into his eyes momentarily. “And he’s - what - on the ferry?”

“Yes, sir. I cannot tell, but there appears to be some disruption going on.”

“Something bad?”

“I cannot tell, sir. Would you like me to send a drone out to investigate?”

Tony sighs. Pepper’s probably going to kill him if he’s late. Then again, if he leaves the kid to fend for himself and something - _anything_ \- happens to him, Tony’ll probably fling himself off the nearest cliff. That is, if May doesn’t beat him to it.

Pushing all thoughts of Peter dying and his very intimidating aunt out of his mind, Tony jerks his head in affirmation. “Yes. And call my suit.”

“Which one, sir?”

Tony pauses. _Better safe than sorry._ “Damage Control. Pull the feed from the drone up, too.”

On cue, a file pops up on the bottom of his screen. Tony opens it and groans immediately.

“Hey, guys! The illegal weapons deal ferry was at 10:30! You _missed it!”_

Tony watches for a moment as the kid, clad in his red and blue suit, waves a set of keys in front of a circle of men, then fires a series of webs. He’s handling himself great, admittedly, bouncing lithely around like nobody’s business, taking out the bad guys like it's nothing - and it probably isn't to him, what with his enhanced everything - but that’s doesn’t reassure Tony at _all_.

Because these are the guys - the very same guys - who were hanging out with that Vulture lunatic that dropped Peter into the ocean. The very same lunatic and the very same guys that Tony distinctly recalls telling Peter to completely forget about.

“God, does he not _listen?”_ Tony grits his teeth, battling a renewed surge of dread mingled with anger. “Fucking kids. Friday, call the FBI. Send them to the boat.”

“Are you -”

“Yes, I’m very sure. Where the fuck is my suit?”

“Coming, sir.” He can hear the vague beginnings of hurt in the AI’s voice. “Damage Control takes some time to start up, if you remember.”

“Yes, I remember, I’m the one who built it. Just hurry up,” he snaps, pushing his chair back and standing up. “Kid doesn’t have all day. What’s the read on the situation?”

“It appears the man who has been targeting Mr. Parker for some time - the Vulture - has emerged. He and Mr. Parker are battling over a weapon. I believe it has an active Chitauri core inside of it.”

Of _course_ they are. Trust the kid to have no self-preservation skills and the ego of, well, of Tony Stark himself. But Tony can afford to fight risky battles like the one Peter seems intent on finishing. He has a suit made of fucking _metal_. And years of experience. Peter Parker is a fifteen-year-old sophomore wearing a cotton fiber onesie, basically.

 _He’s going to get killed_ , Tony realizes and _then_ the panic hits. He exits the room and moves over to where the suit has been called up, stepping in without so much as thinking. The Vulture will not stop to spare the life of some kid busybody.

And Tony’s pretty sure he will not survive anything else if the kid dies. Or even gets remotely hurt. He’s a bonehead, but possibly one of the best, smartest, funniest, kindest boneheads Tony knows. Losing him would punch a Peter Parker sized hole straight through his body like he’s a piece of fucking paper.

And it’ll be on him if something happens.

He takes off, ripping through the sky, setting the tracker for the Staten Island Ferry. It doesn’t take long - a few minutes, maybe - but Tony’s barely paying attention. The beginnings of dread have given away to full-blown panic brewing in the bottom of his stomach and, if he doesn’t concentrate hard enough, he stops breathing.

_Find the kid, get the kid out of harm’s way, possibly kill anyone who’s hurt the kid, fix whatever mess the kid has caused._

And, boy, has the kid caused one _hell_ of a mess.

He can hear the screaming from literal miles away.

“Shit!” he hisses, swooping down so he’s level with the fucking _debacle_ in the middle of the water. _“Shit!”_ He angles the thrusters, speeding towards the ship.

Which has, incidentally, split in _fucking half_ . And there in the middle - _of course,_ Tony thinks to himself, slowing his flight, _of_ fucking _course he is_ \- is the kid. Suspended right smack dab in the middle of the fissure that’s opened along the ship, holding the two halves together by what looks like two single webs. The screaming is almost deafening now, and, even over all of that and the shuddering groan the body of the ship is emitting as the ends move slowly away from one another, Tony can hear the kid’s cries of agony.

The kid’s screams go straight through his ears and into the pit of his stomach, freezing it solid. For a second, he’s so scared and angry he stops flying. Guilt snaps at his metaphorical heels, screaming that this is _his_ fault, that he should’ve listened to the kid and stopped this before it happened and just _dealt_ with the fucking Vulture like any _responsible_ adult would.

Then the ship emits what is possibly the loudest noise yet and he can _see_ the kid straining visibly to keep the two halves together and he speeds down again.

“Deploy the clean-up team,” he mutters and then slams into the side of the ship. _Hard_.

His force alone is enough to slow the rapid progression of the ship falling apart. The added effect of the first few drones joining him stops it all together. The tension of Peter’s webs relaxes, then disappears altogether. He sees the kid jump down, spinning around in palpable confusion. Their gazes meet through the window and the eyes of Peter’s suit widen in surprise.

“Hi, _Spider-man,_ ” he says as levelly as he can. Fury still bleeds into his voice. _“Band practice,_ was it?”

Behind him, the drones are still deploying, and there’s the sound of metal on metal as they swarm to the ship, sticking to the sides and slowly pushing the halves back together. He can hear cheering, someone clapping, but he tunes it all out. Peter suddenly looks very small and lost, standing on both sides of the giant crack running through the ship. They lock eyes one more time and, though the motion is too imperceptible for the suit to even pick up, he shakes his head slightly.

There’s a world of emotion he hopes to communicate in that small gesture.

With the ship mostly together now, Tony relinquishes his hold. The drones won’t keep it together forever, and there’s still a couple hundred people probably scared as shit who need a working boat to get them back to land. He takes off, this time to the lower deck of the ship where the crack formed. There’s scorch marks and Tony’s heart clenches painfully as he sees stray spiderwebs lining the walls.

God, the kid - the literal _child_ \- could’ve been killed. How fucking stupid can he be?

But it’s not stupidity. The kid’s a genius, probable even smarter than Tony, there’s not a stupid bone in his body.

It’s _ego_ . It’s pride. It’s the kid’s weird, convoluted desire to, god, he doesn’t know, be like Iron Man, or something. It’s the stupid, _stupid_ inherent goodness in him that makes him want to save everyone and everything.

The innocence kills Tony on an emotional level. And it’s going to kill Peter on a physical one, if he’s not careful.

Which, judging by _everything that’s just happened,_ really isn’t his strong suit.

He fires the blasters along the split, welding the two pieces back together. He’s vaguely aware of someone following him and he almost turns around to blast them into another dimension, thinking it’s one of the Vulture’s cronies, but of course it’s just Peter fucking Parker, swinging along after him, calling his name.

He ignores it. He continues to ignore it as he flies out the other side and up to the top of the ship. Peter slings himself along the mast and lands in the crow’s nest just as Tony’s finished firing the last blast.

“Can I do anything?” the kid calls out, clinging to the ladder, his head swiveling around, trying to find Tony. “What do you want me to do?”

Tony halts, the question hitting him like a blow to the stomach.

“Oh,” he responds, not bothering to keep the ice out of his voice this time. “I think you’ve done _enough.”_

 

* * *

* * *

 

The aftermath goes relatively smoothly. No one’s yelling, the captain of the ship is beyond grateful, no one died - thank _god -_ and there’s not even any press to harass him about what happened.

Too bad Tony’s barely registering it.

He has a ten minute conversation with the captain about reparations - none needed, the captain assures him, a huge smile plastered to his face - without processing a single word that comes out of either of their mouths. He does several more laps of the ship, resealing the cracks and checking for any more damage without really even knowing what he’s doing.

He flies out from the underside of the ship again. His head is buzzing. The mixture of panic and anger has hit him with full force and, apparently, it’s there to stay.

“Sir, are you alright?” Friday’s voice sounds a little distant and muffled, like Tony’s hearing it through a wall. He shakes his head.

_The kid could’ve died._

“Fine,” he forces out. “Where’s Parker?”

“Mr. Parker is located on the top of that building to your left, sir. He is sitting on the edge of the roof deck. Sir, I am detecting the beginnings of an anxiety attack with you. Would you like me to call for assistance?”

Tony inhales forcefully, holding the breath in his lungs until it burns. _Calm down_ , the voice in his head snarls. _Quit freaking out like a little kid_.

He exhales loudly, the noise echoing around the suit. He feels nauseous and every time he so much as _stops_ , the kid’s screams start playing in the back of his head again.

“Do that and I’ll deprogram you so fast you won’t know what hit you. Is the kid okay?”

It’s his natural question, amidst the barrage of anger he feels towards Peter. Apparently inquiring about the kid’s wellbeing is second nature to him now. Perfect. He’s sure that’ll do a lot when the kid finally dies because of something Tony should’ve been able to stop.

“Externally, Mr. Parker appears to be fine. He has sustained slight bruising to his ribs and has some minor scrapes but nothing of any severity. His pulse seems to be still elevated, but not as much as before.”

Tony takes off towards him. He can already see him, a tiny red and blue pinprick sitting atop the edge of a giant office building. He looks defeated.

He stops just behind the kid, who cranes his neck around to look at him. From close up, Peter’s anger and disappointment and fear hit him like a freight train and, for the umpteenth time that day, Tony is reminded that that is just a _kid_. And he almost ripped himself in half trying to save the boat.

Which, funnily enough, wouldn’t have been a situation had he just _listened_ to Tony and left the Vulture alone. See the list of things he fucking _hates_.

“Previously on Peter Screws the Pooch,” he growls, hovering a few feet above the ground. The war between guilt and anger in him has ceased, and anger has come out on top. “I tell you to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multi-million dollar suit so you can sneak around behind my back doing the _one thing_ I told you not to do.”

The kid’s turned away from him again. “Is everyone okay?”

Peter’s voice is so small and watery and it hits Tony like a ton of bricks and _fuck, he could’ve died_.

“No thanks to you,” he responds venomously. Part - okay, most - of Tony knows that was _beyond_ harsh, that the kid was trying to do good, even if he was being stupid and disobedient and disrespectful. But the kid could’ve _died_ and worry and fear are not things that Tony knows how to work with.

Anger, on the other hand.

The kid whirls around and Tony can see the vague beginnings of resent in his gaze and part of him is _glad_ . He wants the kid to leave, to go as far as he can and escape Tony’s stupid bubble of bad luck and somehow endangering everyone around him. The other part just gets angrier because it’s a little fucking rich that _Peter_ thinks he’s the one who can be angry in this situation.

“No thanks to me?” Peter echoes, voice incredulous. He hops down from the ledge with a little _thud_ and starts marching over to Tony. He can see him shaking. “Those weapons were out there and I tried to tell you about it but you _didn’t listen_.”

Now _that_ just takes the cake. Tony half wonders what the legal parameters are surrounding booting a fifteen year old off a 50 foot building. Probably not great in his favor. He bites the inside of his mouth hard enough to draw blood and continues to hover, motionless.

The kid moves closer, arms windmilling about, face screwed up in an anger. _“None of this_ would’ve happened if you had just _listened_ to me!”

His voice cracks on the ‘listened.’ He’s only fifteen. Tony feels sick with guilt and anger and a million other things he can’t begin to process and how - _how_ \- can the kid be so _brainless_ to think that that was a situation he would come out of okay? If it hadn’t been for Tony, he would’ve been _torn in fucking half_.

Peter’s less than a foot away from him, eyes burning. He gives a shaky scoff. “If you even cared you’d actually be here.”

As if the kid could ever - will ever - comprehend how much Tony cares about him. As if he could come close to understanding what would happen to Tony if something happened to him because he wanted to go off and play heroes. Without pause, he opened up the front of the suit and steps out.

Peter flinches back, eyes wide with shock.

“I did listen, kid,” he says as calmly as he can. Then decides that calmness is overrated and promptly channels all his suffocating worry into barely restrained fury. “Who do you think called the FBI, huh? Do you know, I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone else said I was _crazy_ to recruit a _fourteen-year-old_ kid.”

Peter meets his eyes for a fraction of a second, then looks down, then back up again. He looks more scared than angry now. “I’m fifteen,” he mumbles and Tony snaps.

“No, this is where you _zip it_ , alright? The adult is talking.” he snarls, waving his hand to shut the kid up because _of course_ he knows the kid is fucking _fifteen_ , it’s been all he can think about for months - how time and time again he’s endangered the life of a _fifteen year old_ , so much so that now the kid’s taken the reigns and started doing it himself. “What if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? Because that’s on _you_ -” He jabs a finger at the kid’s chest, who’s now adopted an expression somewhere between forced neutral, shame, and terror. “And if you died -”

Tony inhales forcefully, blocking out all sounds of the _kid_ screaming or the thought of the _kid_ getting hit in the face by Captain fucking America or the _kid_ almost becoming an Avenger on his say-s or the _kid_ getting dropped into an ocean from a mile high by a lunatic with wings. He exhales. “I feel like that’s on me.”

His voice is quieter than he thought it would be. He shakes his head. “I don’t need that on my conscience.”

Because it’s the truth.

Peter looks close to tears and Tony’s chest is twisting painfully again as the kid nods, taking a step back. “Yes sir, I’m - I -”

Tony slices a hand through the air. _“Yes,”_ he says warningly.

But Peter’s still talking, eyes still wide and shining and the guilt versus anger battle has started up with full force. “I’m sorry, sir, I - I understand, I -”

Tony holds his hand up again. “Sorry doesn’t cut it.”

“I just - I just wanted to be like you.”

 _Fuck._ If Peter asking if everyone was okay hit him like a ton of bricks, this one just straight up flattens him. Peter’s voice shakes when he says it and something cold drops into Tony’s stomach when he realizes that he’s acting a little too much like a certain Howard Stark for comfort but that doesn’t _matter_ , he counters internally, because the kid cannot look at him and see some sort of _role model_ . He’s killed millions. He’s successfully driven away every single person in his life at least six times, and some of them have even died. This thing - this hero worship - Peter has going on _has to stop_ because if there is one thing Tony isn’t, it’s a hero.

He’s just a man with a suit of armor and guilt the size of a continent and more issues than he can count. Peter is young and hopeful and probably has a fantastic career ahead of him in science or engineering or something healthy and _good._ He’s _good_ ; he’s the last genuine pocket of goodness in the universe, as far as Tony is concerned. The kid _can’t_ be like him. But, judging from the ferry mess, he’s already on a one way path to doing so.

And Tony can’t let that happen.

“And I wanted you to be better.”

The words ring out in the sudden silence, the pause in noise and commotion from the streets below them and the helicopters still circling and the people on the ferry below. Peter breaks his gaze again. His eyes are shining.

He has to keep everyone safe and, almost more importantly, he has to keep the kid safe as well. And if he can’t be trusted - trusted not to operate like Tony would, with his stupid savior complex and self-sacrificial ‘heroism’ - then he can’t - _shouldn’t_ \- have access to the things that let him act like this.

He can’t be Spider-man.

Tony sighs heavily, trying to, without much luck, dislodge the guilt constricting his chest again. “Okay, it’s not working out. I’m gonna need the suit back.”

He feels Peter’s desperate gaze swing around to bore into him, fear and shame mixing together into a new kind of pain and Tony can’t keep holding it. He stares at a crack in the concrete below them. Hard.

“For how long?”

His gaze moves back up to Peter. _He needs to be safe_ , Tony reminds himself sternly. _And Spider-man really isn’t going to make that happen._

“Forever.”

The words seem to send a physical shock through Peter, who starts shaking his head, eyes begging. “No, no, no, no, please - _please_ \- you don’t understand, this is all I have - I’m _nothing_ without this suit!”

_Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what are you?_

This reliance on his _suit_ \- nothing more than a thing of fabric, it doesn’t cut it. He’s already been down that road, and his house got blown up as a result. The kid has to understand that.

“If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it. Okay?”

He can almost _hear_ Howard speaking along with him and it makes him sick. “God, I sound like my dad,” he mutters, more to himself than to Peter.

The kid stares out to the water, jaw visibly clenched. He looks back to Tony and his mouth opens and shuts for a moment, like he’s not sure what he wants to say. Finally, in a tiny, shaky voice, he speaks.

“I don’t have any other clothes.”

He looks so vulnerable there, even if it’s the most anticlimactic sentence Tony’s heard from him all afternoon. For a second, his resolve wobbles, teeters on the edge of throwing his anger away and wrapping the kid in a hug and just _holding_ him in place until they both finally stop shaking.

But he can’t. Peter can’t get attached and he can’t get reliant. He has to understand that when he steps out of the role of Friendly _Neighborhood_ Spider-man, things get bad very fast. The world is chock full of people a lot worse than simple bike thieves. He _has_ to understand he’s young - too young - to be trying to save the world to the degree he’s at right now. It’ll kill him.

It’ll kill Tony.

“Okay,” he hears himself saying, “We’ll sort that out.”

Then he turns, marches towards the door that will take them down to ground level. He doesn’t check to see if the kid is following - he knows he will - just keeps walking.

 _I just wanted to be like you_.

Tony can’t think of anything more terrifying than that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> in case you ever wondered what went thru tony's head during the ferry mess...here you go. this is beyond unoriginal i was rewatching homecoming and got inspired also didn't want to write dialogue sooo
> 
> also after about 6 million years of telling myself to do so, i finally made an ao3 account! hello! my name is daniel and i Love Tony Stark With My Whole Heart! i will probably write mostly marvel stuff! not sure yet but i'm here i'm present i'm ready to spew my love for all things marvel everywhere


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